An elderly woman has been left feeling "terrified" to answer the phone after she was duped into handing over her bank details by a phone scammer.
Gwen Skelton, 78, received a call from a man claiming to be from the fraud squad on Friday and gave him her details after the con artist told her £600 had been taken out of her account and that the only way to get it back was to hand it over.
When she put the phone now she rang her bank and was told no money had left her account and they had prevented the scammer accessing her cash, Hull Live reported.
Gwen, of Beverly, East Yorkshire now wants to warn people to be wary of scams.
She said: “I just want to get it across to people not to give their details out over the phone. I daren’t answer my phone anymore.
"I’m terrified but I have to use my phone.
“I daren’t say what I think of them, it’s not repeatable I’m sorry. They’re toerags.”
She said: “I’m an idiot aren’t I, I answered all of his questions, I gave him my card number, I gave him the security number and everything.”
“I said ‘what are you going to do now?’ and he said we’ll put it back for you. I said ‘you better, I can’t understand why my own bank hasn’t contacted me’.
“He said ‘you’ve got my number, you can ring me but don’t ring me until tomorrow because our office is closing now’. And I looked at the clock and thought click… click… It was only 2pm, very early for the office to be closing.”
It is the second time Miss Skelton has been the victim of telephone fraud, with scammers taking £228 on the first occasion.
She emphasised how easy it is to fall for the fake calls and wants to ensure others do not make the same mistake.
“I know I have been very stupid but they sound very genuine, they’re so bloody clever and I was very gullible. I just wish my brain had worked properly but I was tired out, she said.
“People need to watch what they’re doing if they answer the phone to anybody that they don’t know because there are a lot of fraudsters about trying to get into our bank accounts."
